Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Thu, Mar 28, 2024

Updates and other random Rush stuff

Fri, Jul 27, 2007@10:58AM | comments removed/disabled

The tour rush's on. After hitting Phoenix and Las Vegas this weekend, Rush will roll through California, playing 4 dates there over the next week and then slowly work their way east. The tour continues to be a success; Alex Lifeson mentioned in a recent interview that ticket sales are up 40% over the last tour, and the band is getting some really great reviews. Readers are continually adding fantastic photos to the tour photo gallery, and I've been updating the bootleg videos page whenever I get a chance. A couple of notable bloggers posted about seeing Rush on their current tour recently. Stephen Mejias, the webmaster of Stereophile magazine, recounted his experience seeing Rush in Boston in this post (thanks snotcopter). And computer technology and business strategist Matt Rosoff wrote this great post about how seeing Rush live in Portland has rekindled his interest in the band after not being much of a fan since Hold Your Fire (thanks Keith F).

I opened up the Rush Pub ongoing chat thread earlier this week and it's getting a lot of use, averaging over 500 comments a day! It seems to have served it's purpose of helping to separate out all the random chit-chat from the main comment threads. I think I might need to hire another bartender though... :) Next on my list is a member list for registered users to help facilitate getting in contact with one another and a poll archive. Thanks to everybody who has contributed to the site. Any donation of 3$ or more and I'll send you a free RUSH IS A BAND bumper sticker.

For last week's poll I asked you how many Rush concert shirts you currently own. Over half of us own 5 or less while 20% own 6-10 and 20% own more than 10! A few poor souls (about 7%) don't own any. :( I currently own 3 ... the other 5 or so have slowly disintegrated over the years. :) To check out all the results, go here

This Sunday is Geddy Lee's 54th birthday so I thought that I'd ask a fun Geddy-themed question for this week's poll. What should we get Geddy for his birthday? Take the poll and let us know.

In addition to being Geddy's birthday this Sunday, it is also the 33rd anniversary of Neil Peart joining the band; Neil joined Rush on Geddy's birthday back in 1974... and the world has never been the same since. Let us all bow our heads in thanks to the Gods of Rock for bringing about this momentous occasion. Amen. ;)

Other Rush news items of note that occurred this past week are the release of The Larger Bowl single to radio, the announcement of a contest to win a trip to New York to see Rush at MSG and the featuring of YYZ on CBS's Guitar Hero II special this weekend.

Snakes & Arrows continues its precipitous fall off the Billboard album charts. Last week it came in at #154 - down from #131 the previous week. It has sold 223,975 copies to date. Here's a nice review of the album from the Seattle Times.

The Rush Bootleg Video Archive has made available a bunch of old Rush interviews on their website at this link.

Rolling Stone magazine disses Rush once again (thanks grand design). No surprise there.

Hardradio is reporting that rock lyricist extraordinaire and Rush friend Pye Dubois has gone missing?:

Canadian rock lyric legend PYE DUBOIS, writer of a handful of RUSH lyrics along with almost all the lyrics for MAX WEBSTER and much of the KIM MITCHELL catalogue has gone missing. "It's unusual for Pye not to call once in a while, and even more unusual for him not to return my calls, usually within a couple hours," notes a concerned Martin Popoff, Editor In Chief at BW&BK, and friend of Dubois, who lives only a couple blocks from Popoff. "And then recently I've tried to call, and his line has been disconnected." Dubois has been in ill health the last few years, which has added to the concern of his friends in both Rush and Max Webster. Of note, attempt was made to contact Pye for participation in the recent one-off Max Webster reunion show, but he was unresponsive. Dubois enthusiastically took part in the band's reunion shows earlier in the '00s, providing what some called the highlight of the show with his hippie-vibed spoken word skills.

Hopefully there's nothing wrong. Thanks to Roy O for the heads up.

Reader Farther From The Spleen tells me that there was more talk about Rush and the Rock Hall on the Howard Stern Wrap Up Show earlier this week.

In a recent issue of Kerrang magazine Benji Madden of Good Charlotte recommends Rush as a good band to see in concert:

They're a great band, they've definitely influenced a lot of bands out there today - you can definitely hear their sound in Tool and Coheed and Cambria, and it's cool for people to be able to see where all that comes from.

Thanks to vladman at TNMS for the heads up.

And here's a cool Rush vs. Annie Lennox vs. Rolling Stones mashup track which uses The Spirit of Radio. The Rush part kicks in at about the 2 minute mark. You can listen to it here. Thanks to Robodan for the link.

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